A Sort of a Christmas Story

 Looking at how inaccessible the starter is on our generator reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in half a century.  I called this post a sort of a Christmas story, and if you just stay with me, you'll see what I mean.

In the early 1970's, before Xerox took over the market, my employer, 3M Company, was the largest copier company in the country.  All of the machines we sold used a patented process with chemically treated or coated papers, then, in 1972, 3M entered into a deal to sell a dry process electrostatic copier manufactured in Japan by Toshiba but sold here under the 3M brand.

MY old pal Ron Conway was the first Houston technician sent to St. Paul to study installation and maintenance on the new machine.  When he got back to Houston, he introduced the new Toshiba/3M box at a service meeting.  He was generally very positive in his comments about the machine, but pointed out that it was built with almost no extra space, so much so that, if you ever had a paper jam, the machine would have to be disassembled almost to the base plate.

Summing up the presentation, Ron said (Here comes the Christmas reference.) "It's a really great little machine, but it was designed to be worked on by Elves."